Mary Balogh - The Secret Mistress

“You have not,” she said crossly, turning to him. “Why must you always worry about offending me? Perhaps I have offended you. If I had not untied the ribbons of my bonnet because I was hot after the climb, it would not have blown off and we would not have run down the hill so that you could put your life in danger to rescue it, and we would not have kissed, and you would not have thought that you owed me a marriage offer again, and I would not have had to tell you that it is unnecessary and that I would refuse it anyway. And do notice that I said we would not have kissed, not you would not have kissed me. It takes two to kiss, you know, unless it is forced, which it clearly was not either just now or in Vauxhall. We kissed. And we do not need to marry just because of it. I will never marry you, so if you are still devising a way to do the gentlemanly thing, forget it. Sometimes I wish you were not such a gentleman, though the fact that you are was precisely why I liked you so much the very first time I saw you.”

The lawn was sloping. She was fairly gasping for air.

He took her hand in his own and drew it through his arm. He bent his head toward hers and looked into her face.

“Don’t cry,” he said softly. “I am sorry. Whatever it is I said or did to hurt you, I am sorry. And don’t tell me not to be. It is not in my nature to hurt others and not be sorry for it. It is who I am, Lady Angeline. Forgive me, if you will, for asking forgiveness.”

He smiled at her. A real smile. Except that it looked a little sad.

She was not crying. Was she?

Oh, what was she going to do?

But it was not a valid question, because it had only one possible answer.

LORD WINDROW CAST a glance back over his shoulder after he had been walking for a few moments with Eunice.

“Ah,” he said, “as I suspected. Lady Angeline Dudley is not to be left to remove the rock from her shoe unassisted after all. Heyward has rushed to her rescue and is on one knee before her. It is an affecting scene and would not be without romantic appeal were he not such a dull fellow.”

“Edward is not dull,” Eunice said. “And of course you were quite right to suspect this would happen. Anyone would have predicted it—except Lady Angeline herself.”

“It was not, ah, planned, then?” he asked.

“The stone in the shoe?” she said. “Yes, that part was, or some such action anyway. But it was a quite different outcome that Lady Angeline planned. I really must tell you about it, for it is quite mad, and rather touching—and not at all honorable where you are concerned.”

“My dear Miss Goddard,” he said, touching his fingertips to her hand as it rested in his arm and dipping his head closer to hers—and turning with her so that they veered off the route to the lake and moved in the direction of a grove of trees a short distance away, “I am intrigued. And I am all ears.”

“Edward and I have known each other for a number of years,” she told him. “We are close friends. We even talked some years ago about marrying each other, but we spoke of it as a possible but by no means certain event comfortably far in the future. We did not consider ourselves betrothed. At the time he was an earnest young student and I was—well, an earnest young woman. If either of us had ever heard the word romance, it was in a purely academic context.”

“Ah,” he said, his fingertips lightly patting her hand. “You were merely a budding flower at that time, then, were you? I wish I had known you then, for academic learning ought always to be reinforced with practical action, you know.”

She slanted him a glance as they stepped between an ancient oak and a beech tree and walked on into the deeper shade of the grove.

“But when you were a student, Lord Windrow,” she said, “did you reinforce practical action with academic learning?”

“Ah, touchй,” he said. “You make a point. A rather barbed one, it is true, but a point nonetheless.”

“After Lady Angeline refused Edward’s marriage offer,” Eunice said, “she—”

“She did that?” he asked, sounding vastly amused. “You astonish me.”

“He could not assure her that he loved her,” Eunice explained.

“Ah,” Lord Windrow said. “Another word that has only academic meaning for Heyward? But did he not have sense enough to lie?”

“Afterward,” Eunice continued, “she befriended me and then she conceived the idea that Edward and I love each other passionately but are held back from marrying by his sense of duty and his family’s expectations that he marry well. She saw us—she sees us—as star-crossed lovers who must be helped to our happily-ever-after.”

Lord Windrow regarded her with laughing, lazy eyes.

“She is willing to give up the man for whom she pines to her new best friend?” he asked. “I assume she is pining. Her partiality for Heyward, mystifying as it is, is also as plain as the nose on your face. Which is a particularly fine specimen of nosehood, I must add.”

Eunice gave him a speaking glance.

“Lady Angeline is very sweet,” she said, “and very kind and very confused. I like her exceedingly well, you know. If you think to mock her in my hearing, think again.”

“Mock a lady?” he said, his free hand over his heart. “You do me an injustice, Miss Goddard. You have wounded me to the soul.”

“She gave me her blessing a while ago,” Eunice said, “but she believes that circumstances have contrived to keep us apart—Edward and me, that is. And so she has decided that she must lend an active hand. She arranged to have me invited to this house party.”

“I must remember,” he said, “to thank her.”

“And she arranged,” she said, “to have you invited here.”

Their footsteps had already slowed as they progressed deeper among the trees. Now they stopped walking altogether, and he released her arm in order to turn to face her. He regarded her with half-lowered eyelids, beneath which his eyes looked both keen and amused.

“Ah,” he said. “But this brain of mine is dense, Miss Goddard. Perhaps I ought to have given more of my attention to academic learning when I was a student after all. We both have Lady Angeline Dudley to thank for bringing us here and, presumably, for throwing us together this afternoon—I never did for a moment believe the boulder-in-the-shoe story—so that we may end up here in this secluded and, ah, romantic part of the park. And yet she is intent upon promoting a match between you and Heyward?”

Eunice sighed.

“Edward bristles at the mere mention of your name, you know,” she said. “You represent for him all that is most depraved in the ranks of bored aristocrats. He considers you a rake of the first order. And his opinion has some justification, you must confess. I know what happened at that inn outside Reading, and it was not well done of you.”

“Alas,” he said, one hand over his heart again, “I was guilty of a colossal error of judgment on that occasion, Miss Goddard. It was not my finest moment. Lady Angeline Dudley was alone in the taproom, her back to me, and she was dressed—well, loudly. I mistook her for something she most certainly was not, and I reacted as almost any red-blooded male would, who had no ties of marriage or like commitments to hold him back.”

“Edward did not,” she said.

His eyes laughed.

“Not all of us can be saints, Miss Goddard,” he said. “Some of us are sinners, sad to say. But even sinners are capable of redemption. Be gentle with me.”

She shook her head and smiled.

“What was supposed to have happened,” she said, “at least, what Lady Angeline expected to happen, was that Edward would come rushing to my rescue as soon as he saw us alone together and wrest me from your evil clutches and bear me off—well, here, I suppose, or somewhere just like it. Somewhere secluded and—romantic.”

“And you were a party to this scheme, Miss Goddard?” he asked.

“Since this morning,” she admitted. “She feared that all her careful scheming would come to naught if I did not know that I was to lure you off when my cue came, so that Edward could come and rescue me.”

“But instead,” he said, “he rescued her. One only wonders if he is capable of taking advantage of opportunity when it comes knocking at his door.”

“Edward is not the dull, unimaginative man you take him for,” she said. “He grew up in the shadow of a charismatic wastrel of a brother, and he has spent his life trying to compensate for the careless neglect with which the late earl treated those nearest and dearest to him. He takes duty seriously. He takes life seriously. But I have always known that he is capable of deep feeling and deep passion. And now he is in love, poor Edward, and thoroughly bewildered, especially over the fact that the object of his love is totally the opposite in every conceivable way of the sort of lady he would expect to choose for a bride. He has not yet understood, of course, that that is what makes her so perfect for him.”

“Ah,” Lord Windrow said, “what an excellent person you are, Miss Goddard. You are not only intelligent, but you have a female’s logic too.”

“I am female,” she said.

He looked her over lazily from head to foot—from her unadorned straw bonnet and the smooth brown hair beneath it, over her plain but serviceable muslin dress of pale green, on down to her sensible brown walking shoes.

“Yes,” he said before lifting his eyes to hers, “I had noticed.”

“Well,” Eunice said after swallowing, “thank goodness for that.”

“And so Heyward is supposed to believe that I am having my wicked way with you in the forest, is he?” he asked.

“He is.” She smiled at him. “He knows better, though. He trusts my good sense.”

“Does he indeed?” His lazy eyes searched her face. “But does he trust me?”

“He trusts my ability to handle you,” she said.

He took one step forward, and she took a half-step back in order to steady her back against the sturdy trunk of a tree.

“That sounds fascinating,” he said. “How would you handle me, Miss Goddard?”

“Since I have no experience,” she said, “and therefore cannot answer your question directly, Lord Windrow, I can only suggest that I answer it with—how did you phrase it?—with practical action.”

“Ah,” he said, taking another step forward, so that his body, from shoulders to thighs, brushed against hers, “take your time, Miss Goddard. There is no hurry at all for your answer. And do feel free to handle me to your heart’s content.”

“Thank you,” she said. “I will.”

And he brought his mouth down, open, across hers.

“And now,” he said several minutes later, his lips still brushing hers, “you have no need to answer my question. Sometimes action speaks far louder than words. And that pearl of wisdom is the academic portion of your lesson for today. Heyward would be shocked at how misplaced his trust in you is.” His lips moved down to her throat. “Although if his trust was merely in your ability to handle me, then it could be argued just as forcefully that his trust was well placed.”

“Yes,” she said. “But poor Lady Angeline. She will doubtless believe she has failed and will wish to try again.”

“A plan I thoroughly applaud,” he said, stepping back and looking with keen approval at her flushed face and rosy, just-kissed lips. “Can you persuade her to try again this evening?”

He grinned.

“Oh,” she said, “I will do no such thing. I would not have agreed to this afternoon if I had not felt that Lady Angeline needed a nudge in Edward’s direction. I knew he would not come after me, but I hoped he might spend some time with her and that the two of them might come to their senses. Whether it has worked or not, I do not know. But I was not cut out for intrigue. I shall tell her later that I have no romantic interest at all in Edward or he in me and that she must put aside her schemes. I daresay she will be relieved, for of course she loves him herself and must be heartbroken over her conviction that he belongs to me. She really is a very sweet girl and my first female friend ever. I value her friendship and will not toy with it any longer.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” he said. “I am cut out for intrigue, you see, and I believe it would be perfectly splendid to play Lady Angeline Dudley at her own game and at the same time accelerate her into the arms of her dull swain, who you insist is not dull at all. I have been used, Miss Goddard, and I am deeply offended. I am entitled, it would seem, to revenge in kind.”